Pictured above: Preschool teaching team Jonathan Ewell (left) and Ashley Blake (right)
Trust, love, a sense of calm, and yes... wiggly lines all begin to help shape what preschool looks like at Friends School of Portland. Over FSP’s first 18 years, the preschool program has been shaped by many thoughtful and joyful teachers. This year, the Maine Psychological Association (MePA) has awarded FSP’s teaching team, Ashley Blake and Jonathan Ewell, the Maine Educator’s Excellence Award!
MePA’s Educator Recognition Program recognizes PK-12 educators who demonstrate exceptional psychologically minded performance and a commitment to advancing positive mental and behavioral health outcomes. Ashley and Jonathan were nominated and selected for their deep knowledge of young children’s emotional needs and their high level of attunement that they bring to their work.
FSP’s faculty and staff celebrated this award with a small gathering complete with special crowns made by third and fourth-grade students and favorite snacks joined by a member of the MePA nominating committee.
Ashley and Jonathan shared a few of their thoughts about the acknowledgment of early childhood education by MePA and their journey to their current roles:
Jonathan: We are honored to receive this award, especially for its recognition and validation of the importance of early childhood education in a student’s learning and development.
Ashley: I am glad that we get to shed a light on early childhood education, and the important foundation that it sets for lifelong learning. During these early years, children build essential skills necessary for academic success. Play is their work. They construct meaning, practice skills, and lean into challenges. The magic happens when they begin to see themselves as the competent learners that they are. The aim, then, is that preschool children enter the next leg of their journey equipped with skills to tackle academic tasks, strengthened self-regulation, confidence, and a foundational love of learning.
Jonathan: My first preschool teaching job was in a Montessori preschool in South Burlington, Vermont. I had just finished a season of apple picking and was young with a full head of hair and little idea of what to do with myself when I was invited to apply for an assistant teaching position at the school during their celebration of the color-splashing festival of Holi. The interview process largely consisted of me sitting in an undersized chair while being repeatedly blasted with tiny handfuls of colored powder and sponged paint administered by wildly enthusiastic people roughly a third of my size. Thus, a nearly 25-year career was born!
After a few years in Vermont, my partner Anne and I moved to Madison, Wisconsin, where I worked at another Montessori preschool for three years. The two schools were entirely different in setting, tone and application of Montessori principles, but the teachers in both places were all amazingly skilled, compassionate, and committed to honoring the full humanity of the students, who I learned very quickly are so much more than just “cute little kids”.
My father is a Quaker and I grew up knowing Mary Tracy, who was getting ready to start up this little Friends School in Maine while I was still in Madison. Before long, Anne and I were back in Portland, where I interviewed and ultimately began my time at Friends School of Portland. Initially, I was FSP’s Aftercare Coordinator and Preschool Assistant with Lea Sutton, another amazingly skilled, compassionate, committed teacher! I spent several years at the school in a variety of positions, filling in where needs arose, (middle school Social Studies, Math assistant, Kindergarten co-teacher, Body Mind Spirit teacher, etc.), and wound up back in the Preschool room with Marie Reimensnyder, (still another amazing teacher and human being!), after Jonathan Rhoads and Kelsey Kobik, (yes, both incredibly amazing people and preschool teachers!) both left the same year. When Marie left, Ashley appeared and, (of course!), was and is amazingly skilled, compassionate, and deeply committed to all of our (amazing!) students and their families!
Ashley: I didn’t set out to go into teaching. I had a different plan. In college, I took a position at an early childhood center and really fell in love with the work. Because of this, I decided to tailor my college coursework looking through an early childhood lens. I’ve never looked back.
A few years later, I took a preschool teaching position at a local private school and taught there for six years. This experience solidified my love of teaching and helped me to grow into the role. The other significant teaching experience prior to FSP was at a Reggio Emilia-inspired preschool. It was there that I was introduced to Reggio Emilia-inspired education formally, although I had always viewed education similarly. Young children are competent, capable, and worthy of respect -- and the work that they do is important and valuable. When you view children, and their work, through those lenses, it becomes easy to support, extend, guide, and facilitate their learning experiences as they drive them.
I feel lucky to be here at FSP, and to have entered into the flow of slowness, intentionality, and clarity here before me. I have learned and will continue to learn, so much from being a part of this school. I have gained a ton from this stop on my own lifelong learning journey.
Jonathan: Working together as a teaching team, Ashley and I are respectful and supportive of one another, intuitively and intentionally communicative and collaborative, and deeply appreciative and trusting of each other’s best intentions. We talk about the importance of modeling our humanness, with all of its flaws and wonders, for the students, and we share the belief that humor is an integral component of spiritual, intellectual, and social-emotional learning and development.
Working and playing while nestled within the loving community of FSP is an incredible gift, and it is wonderful to have such positive, caring relationships between our class and the teachers, staff, parents, and older students! Extra shout out to all of our truly amazing Specials teachers and Aftercare staff!! Extra super shout-out to FSP’s natural outdoor spaces that the preschoolers inhabit for how they inspire, nurture, and guide us all!
Ashley: It can be easy to overlook the magic in the everyday. But a lot of the important teachable moments happen during transitions -- the pockets between the daily rhythm. This is where children navigate social nuance, build self-regulation, practice taking turns, learn to follow the group plan, etc. And because we are intentionally slow during these moments, the children are not rushed to move to the next step -- the next “work”. All of it is their work. And because their work is valuable and meaningful, we lean into as much of it as we can.